Booth Personnel
 Your booth personnel are your company’s representatives to the public. As such, standards of dress and behavior must be high. In matters of dress, the trend at several U.S. shows over the last few years has moved away from formal business attire to sport casual, while European and South American shows still rely on traditional business dress. In fact, at some shows the traditional suit and tie can make you seem a bit out of touch or overly formal.
The answer is to do a bit of research beforehand. If there is any doubt as to the image you wish to project, business attire is always a sensible choice (and you can always take off the jacket). For men, in all cases, leave the ponytails, T-shirts, and funky jackets at home (unless you’re attending E3, where pretty much anything goes). For women, revealing or provocative outfits should also be left in the closet. Shoes should be sensible and very comfortable as you’ll be standing on your feet for many hours. Also, no chewing gum, smoking or chewing tobacco, or eating in the booth; company personnel on break should leave the booth and walk around. This gives them the chance to decompress, eat, and look at what the competition is doing. If company personnel stay near the booth, attendees will inevitably ask them for information and become annoyed if told “we’re on a break.”
Depending on the size of your company, it is also a good idea to have a mix of personnel at the show to handle different situations. For example, channel sales managers and representatives should be present to deal with reseller inquiries and leads. Technical personnel should be present to deal with people who come to the booth with questions or problems about the product (a common occurrence). Be sure that your technical personnel have been trained on proper booth strategy. Programmers and support people tend to be forthright; overheard at a show we attended, “You won’t believe some of the bugs we fixed in this release and there are still a couple of winners in there.” Remind everyone that a trade show is an opportunity to put the company’s best foot forward.
Also be careful how you deploy personnel hired only for the show. Many companies hire professional models and greeters to put a more attractive face on their exhibit and free employees for more substantial work. If you decide to use temporary employees for show duty, it is probably a mistake to allow them to demonstrate your software or answer any questions about the company or its products. They will not be knowledgeable about either, and it will show. This is not the type of image you wish to portray.
Booth personnel need to be responsive, polite, and aware that they have on average three to five seconds to interest qualified prospects to enter their booth. The key word is "qualified"; positioning personnel to stand at the side of an aisle or at the entrance to your booth handing out free giveaways simply to build booth traffic is a waste of time and resources. They also need to be able to quickly qualify potential customers. A certain percentage of attendees who stop by the booth are not interested in your product and are just "kicking tires." Train your booth personnel to ask questions that quickly and deftly take attendees through the sales qualification process: What business are you in? What problems does your company face? What goals and objectives do you have when you make your purchase? What is your timeframe for purchase?
It is also a good idea to plan on staffing for alternating shifts. Trade shows are exhausting. The floors are hard, backs will ache, and voices will become hoarse. Even the most motivated personnel will wilt by the end of a big show if not relieved on a regular basis.
We also recommend providing chairs at demo stations for shows that span several days. In making this recommendation we are arguing against the prevailing wisdom, but we note that the prevailing wisdom has often not experienced the sore feet and physical debilitation that occurs after several days of standing on thinly carpeted trade show floors. People in pain tend not to be the most effective advocates for your company and products.
A last note about booth manners. At a well-attended show, booth personnel may need to manage several attendees at once. In such cases, it is a mistake to focus on one customer without acknowledging the other. The usual result of being ignored for several minutes is that the attendee will walk off in disgust with ill will toward your company. A superior technique is to ask the first attendee if they mind if you find out what the other party wants. Then speak to the person waiting, ask them what they need, then make a decision to, A) ask them to wait and give them an estimate of how long that will be, B) refer them to someone else in the booth, or C) answer a simple question quickly and return your attention to the first attendee.
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